Community Solutions: Building trust, buy-in takes time
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City community leaders are trying a new, ambitious approach to drastically reduce how many people are hurt or killed in the city.
It’s called KC 360 and it follows the example set by a similar group that has been in Nebraska for 17 years called Omaha 360. It’s a big group of organization and individuals addressing the underlying causes of violence and crime, trying to stop it before it ever starts.
It’s expensive and requires hundreds of millions of dollars a year to fund the long list of initatives from job training to housing.
Data has shown violent crime in Omaha generally trending down and Omaha police say Omaha 360 is a big part of the reason why.
Community Solutions: Importing success to Kansas City from Omaha
But, favorable crime data doesn’t always perfectly match up with how people feel about their community.
No city is perfectly safe, but 2024 is one of the safest times to be in Omaha.
Generally there have been fewer homicides and shootings from one year to the next from 2012 until the start of the COVID pandemic. When crime does happen, more of those incidents are solved and public opinion of the Omaha Police Department has improved while complaints have trended down.
It’s the kind of data that city leaders dream about, and yet Omaha resident Nnenna Holbert says she isn’t so sure.
“It’s really hard to say because we just had a murder a few days ago and then a couple other little things so it’s it just depends,” Holbert said.
The Malcolm X Memorial Foundation President Leo Louis II shows murals to KC 360 visitors at the Foundation building. Empowerment Network and Omaha 360 Founder Willie Barney walks KC 360 leaders through Omaha crime data and how Omaha 360 fits into the changes.
Even if it might not be immediately obvious to residents like Holbert, the effort has created relationships in Omaha that was already helping solve the homicide she was talking about.
Latron “Chrome” Louis admits he’s one of the last people you would have expected to find in a room with police officers by his own choice.
Even now, he doesn’t sit right next tot hem, but his Code Z Outreach Network connected the dots about the shooting Holbert referenced.
“I gangbanged for years around the streets of North Omaha,” Chrome said. “We’re able to gather intel from the streets because we’re trusted by these local street gangs.”
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“It’s music to my ears,” said Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer. “Here’s how it helps: when we have a violent crime, a shooting or a homicide in Omaha, very seldom, very seldom, do we not have early working knowledge of who potential suspects are. Imagine a city that just doesn’t know. You’re just not going to solve those.”
And Chief Schmaderer’s detective have done a lot of solving over the last few years.
Homicide rates have dropped and Omaha PD solved all 29 of its homicides in 2023 and more than three-quarters of the non-fatal shootings which is basically unheard of for mid-size and large cities.
Still, Omaha 360 founder Willie Barney says it takes time to feel the big progress he says his group has made.
“Some of it’s really immediate just by having attention that’s really focused but sustaining it is the trick,” Barney said. “We identified some short-term projects that we saw that were successful and we continued to build on those.”
Barney says that’s earned Omaha 360 the time and good will to tackle the bigger problems on a massive scale. Even when there’s a string of shootings or setbacks during COVID, residents like Katherine Rasmussen are willing to trust the city will get back on track.
“It isn’t just talk,” Rasmussen said. “They have action, they have a plan and they tell you what it is and they don’t hide from the controversial things that happen so you trust them.”
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The early work in Kansas City has started with $3.5 million being invested in the Santa Fe neighborhood through a variety of projects. But, a fatal shooting while the KC 360 group was in Omaha drives the point home that there’s more work to be done.
“Right now, we’re averaging a shooting, a homicide every other day,” said KC 360 founder Klassie Alcine. “Who are we waiting for?”
